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Davis: Is it time for Minnesota to build a wall on North Dakota border?

Border wall prototypes along the southern U.S. Border as pictured in November of 2017. (Photo courtesy of Mani Albrecht, U.S. Customs and Border Protection Office of Public Affairs - Visual Communications Division)

The midterm elections have come to an end. As a true Minnesota conservative, I’m proud of Minnesota voters. They rejected the Minnesota versions of corrupt GOP white supremacists like North Dakota’s Kevin Cramer, a proud Trumpist who defeated North Dakota moderate Democrat Heidi Heitkamp.

Cramer has voted numerous times to take away health care from Americans with pre-existing conditions and wants to compromise Social Security and Medicare so that his billionaire donors can receive tax cuts. His campaign ads lied about his position on such matters, but it’s clear to any thinking voter that Cramer rejects political equality, natural rights and popular sovereignty, the cornerstones of American constitutional democracy.

It’s also clear that he will continue to attack ordinary North Dakotans who need health care protection or whose religious preference or sexual orientation doesn’t meet with his approval. He’s one of the faces of white supremacy.

The fact that the United States and its constitution won in Minnesota while in North Dakota corporate Republicans and provincial bigotry were victorious requires me, as a true conservative, to ask an unavoidable question: should Minnesota build a border wall along the Red River to protect democracy and the American dream from the threat of North Dakota? I’m talking about a big, beautiful wall with colorful murals painted on both sides so that residents close to those walls can feel at ease.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m sure there are lots of good people in North Dakota: I know many of them. But it’s also clear that lots of dangerous extremists reside there who must not be allowed to cross over and threaten Minnesota residents.

I have to admit, since I live on the Minnesota side of the border, that I would hate to give up Fargo, a bastion of democracy (and excellent cuisine and craft breweries) in an otherwise compromised state. Might Fargo (and West Fargo, if they so choose, since they have Costco, a corporation with quality products that pays decent wages) vote to secede from a failed state and join us in Minnesota? I think we should give them that option. They’ve earned it, and my many friends in those municipalities don’t deserve to be imprisoned with the ones who vote bigots like Cramer into office.

North Dakota can keep their Fargo football team, which is very good. After all, even a failed state needs bread and circuses to keep its citizens from turning into Walking Dead zombies. When they want a taste of real freedom, though, instead of violent entertainment, we can provide them with 24-hour visas to cross the border wall, provided they wear ankle bracelets, to give them the chance to experience the rarefied air of a state where progressive conservatives stand for something besides regressive taxation.

I have to laugh, though, when I think of a North Dakotan squinting in the sunlight of freedom. Can we afford to provide them with complimentary sunglasses? Can we hire guides to teach them what it means to judge every single person by the content of their character instead of the color of their skin or their religious or sexual preference? Yes, we can! And we will!

We Minnesotans are neighborly people. We have compassion. We have empathy. We are the chosen people because we vote, more often than not, for democracy instead of discrimination, for all citizens instead of the wealthy few. We will share our bounty so long as North Dakotans leave their bigotry on the west side of the Red River.

The only question that remains is who’s going to pay for the border wall that will protect Minnesota from North Dakota. I think it’s clear that North Dakota should and will pay for it. After all, they’ve created the problem that plagues their state and threatens ours.

As a true conservative, I pledge to work with progressive conservatives in Minnesota to assure that billionaires like North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum pay for the wall. If Burgum can buy himself the North Dakota State House, he can afford to build that wall.

While we think of the wall in Minnesota as protecting our border, Burgum can rationalize the expense because he’ll be closing off his border, like the North Korean dictator. North Dakota, North Korea: is there really that much difference?